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Sexual Harassment, Harvey Weinstein, & Calling our Shots
It shouldn’t take the Harvey Weinstein story and the ever-growing list of allegations against him to purge forever those predators and perverts and power-crazed men from Hollywood or Washington DC or my hometown in Northern Ireland – but perhaps it will. Such men are around every corner – on Wall Street and Main Street, in the White House and the schoolhouse, in our churches and our universities, in the military and the media. And given the response on social media of thousands of people who are sharing their own sexual harassment experiences with the #MeToo hashtag, such men have been there for too long, their abuses of power and women camouflaged by the sad and systemic…
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A Sense of Wonder, Aging, Barmbrack, Belfast, Best friends, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Good Vibrations, Hyndford Street, In the Days Before Rock n' Roll, Irish culture, Little Feat, Madame George, Memoir, Milestones, Music, Norn Iron Soul Food, Northern Ireland, Paris Buns, pop culture, Pop Music, Pop-in Records, Record Shops, Rites of passage, Rituals, Seamus Heaney, Snowball, Soundtracks of our Lives, Terri Hooley, Themes of childhood, Van Morrison, Vinyl Records, WagonWheel, When the Healing Has Begun
Caught up One More Time . . . on Cyprus Avenue
From Cyprus Avenue on Van Morrison's 70th birthday - when the familiar refrain streamed across a continent into my kitchen in the desert, and the appreciative whistles from the Belfast crowd, my whole world stopped for a second. Back street jelly roll . . .
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saving for a rainy day . . . in Phoenix
When I turned fifty (admittedly a while ago), I realized that: a) I would never make enough money to go to a job I hate every day and b) money really isn’t everything although I have often acted as though it is. Much to the chagrin of Suze Orman, I don’t organize money neatly in my wallet, and I honestly couldn’t tell you how much is in the checking account at any given time. If I must choose between purchasing something sensible like a new kitchen appliance or springing for a hard-bound signed copy of Seamus Heaney’s Nobel speech, “Crediting Poetry,” well, there is no choice which leads me to an August afternoon in 2013,…
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Louisiana 2016 ~ Home Sweet Home
But it isn’t my home, now slowly melting down to sweeten the sea.” ~ Sara Cress: Poem for the Louisiana Flood Unprecedented and unexpected, the storm came like a hurricane with neither wind nor a name, but a relentless, record-breaking rain that over the course of four days wreaked havoc in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to Scientific American, this is a “once-in-a-1,000-year event” that has killed 11 people and displaced tens of thousands. The Governor’s office reports that 40,000 homes are damaged and at least 10,000 people are living in shelters. Over 30,000 people have been rescued, but they cannot be certain how many people are still stranded, waiting to be rescued. The summer of 2016 has been deadly…
